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# Danielle Pletka
- URL: https://www.cascadepbs.org/ideas-festival/speakers/danielle-pletka/
- Published: 2026-03-24T17:20:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-12T17:22:50.000Z
- Author: Danielle Pletka
- Tags: #hide, #Ideas_Festival_2026_Speaker

Danielle Pletka is a distinguished senior fellow in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she focuses on US foreign policy, the Middle East, and terrorism. Until January 2020, Ms. Pletka was the senior vice president of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at AEI. She also teaches US Middle East policy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and is a political analyst for NBC News.  
  
Before joining AEI, Ms. Pletka was a senior professional staff member for the Middle East and South Asia for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.  
  
Ms. Pletka has authored, coauthored, and coedited a variety of studies, monographs, and book chapters, including the introduction to “Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East” (AEI Press, 2019); the report “Tehran Stands atop the Syria-Iran Alliance” (Atlantic Council, 2017); the chapter “America in Decline” in “Debating the Obama Presidency” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); “America vs. Iran: The Competition for the Future of the Middle East” (AEI, 2014); “Iranian Influence in the Levant, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan” (AEI, 2012); “Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran” (AEI, 2011); and “Dissent and Reform in the Arab World: Empowering Democrats” (AEI Press, 2008).